Developer Studio Wildcard has announced Scorched Earth, a big expansion for its popular PC and Xbox One game ARK: Survival Evolved. The expansion, which adds a new map to the game, costs $19.99 to download and is part of an overall update to the main game.

Scorched Earth is an completely new and different experience from The Island. Stranded naked, dehydrated and starving on a fiery, drought-ridden desert world, Survivors must immediately seek water, hunt for food, harvest new flora, craft new items, and build shelter from the extreme heat. Scorched Earth is an entirely new map, composed of seven unique, desert themed biomes – dunes, high desert, mountains, canyons, badlands, oasis and the ever-dangerous dragon trench – each with their own aesthetics, resources & ecosystems, and littered with ruins, geysers, and intricate ancient cave systems.The desert's biomes are filled with fantastical new creatures, many of which can be tamed. Lead a caravan of the camel-like Morellatops, or rain fire down on your enemies from the back of a Wyvern. Just mind your step in the vast desert, or you might attract a Death Worm!

While the expansion costs $19.99, PC and Xbox One players who have yet to purchase ARK: Survival Evolved will be able to do so at a 40% discount for the next several days. The game is also getting an overall free update, which will offer Xbox One owners some extras and improvements:

The update will also include a HD resolution upgrade to fully support 720p gameplay with 1080p UI's. Primitive+ is now an official part of ARK: Survival Evolved on Xbox One, which features over 100 new items, weapons, structures, and survival mechanics oriented towards "primitive" style living -- effectively doubling the amount of content within ARK! Newly available as part of the 'ARK Official Mods Program' today, Primitive+ is a functionality mod playable on official ARK maps, challenging players to use weapons and tools only made of wood and stone, without the benefit of advanced metals to create weapons such as guns. It's a whole new set of items and detailed mechanics focused on 'primitive' survival, which fits snugly in the world of ARK.

In addition, the versatile Pelagornis and the pack-minded Allosaurus, along with a new Fishing Rod and fishing mechanic, and a flurry of additional gameplay features have been added!

ARK: Survival Evolved is still listed in Steam Early Access for PC and on Xbox One Game Preview.

It's not one map. It's a huge map, tons of new items, and tons of new creatures, along with a new style of gameplay. Its basically a new game. That being said, I do agree that charging for a DLC is a little absurd when the game the DLC is for hasnt officially be released and is still in steam early access...

yeah, as far as I'm concerned any development on something not release yet should go to the actual game they're trying to beta test.. why would they start working on a DLC before even finishing their game

I agree. I could understand the price if it was a fully released game, but this is a preview program game... We already spent money and took a chance on them. They should appreciate our blind trust and support by allowing us to get the "DLC" free.

I don't understand the issue some have with the price. The initial game, with 20 buck, allow hundreds of gaming hours, now, the dlc, if it works as explained with new biomes, creature, mecanics, will do the exact same thing. Stop whining about price cause for whatever reason, the game is enjoyable and last far more longer than a huge majority of fully released games. And if you can't play 20 hours this game, which is the standard duration for a 40buck released game, I think it's just not your type of game and that is your problem, not the game status.
Well maybe I'm just dumb to look for the ratio "hour of enjoyment/money" for a game. Maybe the "this is marked as a dlc/beta so, even if I can play hours and hours without getting bored, it should still be free" is a more normal way to think, but seriously, this just piss me off to read that.

If there is a DLc, it's never finished. Whatever the game is, if it needs a dlc, it is still in development. A lot of companies (I did not mention Ubisoft at all xD) would have released this game for a long time now, and all the news stuff they actually add for free would be paid dlc.
All online game like dota-like, mmorpgs, are "in development" too, they continue to add bug fixe, content, etc. But since they are flagged as released it is really different?

In fact the real problem is that they did a DLC, rather than optimising the game for a release. We don't need content for now, but just a smooth gameplay.
In the other hand, people got borred reaaly quickly with the new "game as a fastfood" model, so they add content...